Machines for filling boxes, bags and the like with articles such as cereal, popcorn and the like for deposit in boxes are generally provided with a hopper for receiving a quantity of articles for delivery into the upper end of a vertically-disposed tube on which the bag forming material is formed. Such apparatus known as vertical form fill seal machines are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,217. When using such apparatus for filling bags with larger articles such as cookies, crackers and the like, these articles may tend to clump together and hang in the throat of the hopper where it joins the vertically-disposed tube. It is the purpose of this invention to eliminate this problem by providing means for introducing the articles into the upper end of the tube in such a way as to avoid hangup.
In straight line weigher machines which have conventionally been used to fill boxes containing a liner with articles such as crackers and cookies, a tip-over drum 10 such as that shown in FIG. 1 has been used. The tip-over drum 10 receives the weighed load of product when its flat center tray portion 12 is approximately horizontal and delivers the product onto a feed slide 20. At each end of the tray there is an angled portion 14. The angled portion 14 furthest from the feed slide 20 retains the product within the drum as it turns. As the drum turns the product is caused to slide towards the angled portion 14 nearest the feed slide 20. The objective of the drum 10 is to cause the product to align flat against the drum's tray and then slide off the angled portion 14 so as to slide down the feed slide 20 while the product is on its flat side. With all of the product sliding on its flat side down the feed slide 20, the clumping problem was reduced in the straight line weighers.
It was found however that when the tip over drum of the prior art is used with a vertical form fill seal machine, clumping and hang up of the product was a major problem. In a vertical form fill machine the product is fed first into a tube of bag forming material after which the bag is sealed, cut and dropped into a box. In this machine, the feed slide is more narrow than in the straight line weigher thereby contributing to the hangup problem.